Re-tastrophe in Repo-men

*spoilers for both Repo-men and Daybreakers follow*

So I just finished watching Repo-men, which I think, was a brilliant movie. Now I’ve heard some criticism thrown its way for being predictable, and I guess it’s a movie that you have to be in the right mindset to see, but if you can endure the incredible hopelessness conveyed by the film, then you’ll likely enjoy the movie. Now, Repo-men has taken some criticism for ‘copying’ the genetic opera, and there are some claims that it isn’t an entirely original concept, but since I knew none of this going into the movie, it didn’t bother me one bit.

Another movie I’ve watched recently is Daybreakers which is a film about a vampirized world running out of blood. Now, these movies make obvious comparisons in a few basic ways, which I’d like to touch on before looking at other aspects of the films: each film deals rather directly, with the capitalist ‘problem’. Repo-men is unapologetic in its criticism of the capitalist system: after all, it’s a film about repossessing organs. But Daybreakers is more subtle: when a blood alternative is found for the vampires, and they no longer need to feed on humans, the main antagonist insists that there will always be the select elite who will pay to dine on human blood. Now, anti-capitalist sentiments aside, I want to look at how these two similar movies go about portraying their theme in two entirely different lights.

This post is about re-tastrophies, but to explain what these are, and to explain why repo-men makes brilliant use of this narrative tool, I have to explain eutastrophes, and yes, catastrophes.

Daybreakers follows the romance formula set down in Tolkien’s works. The protagonist in daybreakers is mostly happy, but slowly comes to be aware of a greater ill in his world which makes him uneasy. Conflict is created, the protagonist’s station is weakened (in this case, he becomes a human) and the trials of this new position help him understand and eventually destroy the greater ill. At the last minute, he seems as if he will fail, and there is a Eutastrophe, an unlikely positive event that none-the-less makes sense within the context of the narrative. Everything turns out better than expected. In the case of Daybreakers, the eutastrophic twist is the manner by which the cure to vampirism is found. The movie follows the normal romance arc, and you never really expect the hero to fail. 

The greater ill mentioned above is the catastrophe, and every narrative has one. Now what qualifies as catastrophic in a narrative varies, but the purpose of the catastrophe is always to generate conflict. In zombie movies the catastrophe is a zombie plague. In daybreakers it’s a lack of blood, in old yeller it’s the boy’s father leaving, and in repo-men it’s a false heart. Every romance book or narrative has a catastrophe, whether big or small, and the catastrophe is always successfully addressed by the protagonist, otherwise the romance becomes a tragedy.

The eutastrophe in Daybreakers is the solution to the catastrophe but this is not always the case. In most cases the eutastrophe is a solution which comes out of the blue at the last minute and is normally only a solution for the protagonist. In the case of Frodo Baggins, for instance, the eutastrophe is Gandalf showing up on eagles at the last minute to spirit him out of harm’s way. The eutastrophe doesn’t solve the catastrophe (Frodo destroying the ring does that) it only saves the hero from the negative side-effects of the catastrophe as it ends. 

Then there is the re-tastrophe: this is the M Night Shyamalan twist! A re-tastrophe takes a romance narrative and through a means which is consistent with the narrative, makes the work a tragedy. This is a great narrative device if you can pull it off and soul-crushing in the extreme for the reader. Despite being depressing a re-tastrophe takes a certain skill to execute and will leave your readers wowed if used properly. (You may be able to tell from my tone here that I normaly see sad endings as a cop-out by the author of a work. Killing everyone does not a tragedy make: I'm looking at you Shakespeare's Hamlet.)

One thing I want to note is that unlike a eutastrophe which only positively effects the protagonist and maybe some close friends, the re-tastrophe completely reasserts the catastrophe, with all the ill effects which that implies. In the case of repo-men, the repo service keeps functioning. In the case of the Lord of the Rings, the ring would have to survive the fires of mount doom, and in the case of a zombie plague, well, the cure could just, not work. Repo-men is impressive because it has all three of these devices. It has a catastrophe: the world has grown so money-driven that organs can be reclaimed if payments aren’t made on them. It has a eutastrophe: near the end of the movie the protagonist’s best friend comes back from the ‘dark side’ and saves the day, destroying the repo-service in the process. And it has a re-tastrophe as we find out that the protagonist had been killed several scenes earlier and is being held in a coma-like state. His best friend has learned nothing and is essentially prolonging his torment: his girlfriend is dead and her organs will be reclaimed, and will pay for his prolonged coma, and the repo-service itself will continue unabated. Repo-men is a tragedy, but brilliantly written, whether ripped off from another source or not, I enjoyed it immensely.